Here is an an interesting piece from Nina Gryphon's website which displays the elected chart for the foundation of Baghdad city. The chart time is the one presented by James Holden in his A History of Horoscopic Astrology.

It will be interesting to check this chart against later historical developments. Nina quite rightly points out it seems rather counter-intutive to have Mars in the 7th opposing the ascendant. As she comments:

Quote:

However, Mars in the seventh house ensures that Baghdad's swords and weapons will be forever drawn and pointing in the direction of the enemy. This is not a placement one would have chosen for a peaceful and uneventful reign. Perhaps the astrologers considered that war was inevitable, and at least wanted to make sure that the city always had the advantage.

One obvious later historical episode that occurs is the siege, and sacking of the city by the Mongols in 1258.

From Wikipedia:

Quote:

Estimates of the number of inhabitants massacred during the invasion range from 100,000 to 1,000,000. The city was sacked and burned. Even the libraries of Baghdad, including the House of Wisdom, were not safe from the attacks of the Ilkhanate forces, who totally destroyed the libraries and used the invaluable books to make a passage across Tigris River[citation needed]. As a result, Baghdad remained depopulated and in ruins for several centuries, and the event is widely regarded as the end of the Islamic Golden Age

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Below I have put the chart for the foundation of the city in 762 CE in the inner wheel of a bi-wheel while the chart for the sacking is on the outer wheel. Note: I dont know the exact time the siege ended on February 10th 1058 CE and the sacking began. I have chosen to align the ASC/DESC axis in both charts with the time chosen.

Houses: It seems likely the Persian and Arab astrologers involved in the election of this chart would have been using both Whole sign and Porphyry houses. I have displayed the latter system here as I know most members here utilise quadrant houses.

Zodiac: I have seen some evidence the Persian and early Arab astrologers were using a sidereal zodiac. This would require a slightly different time to get the configuration of angles we have here. The issue is more fundamental if we consider planetary positions. My main concern here though is just to highlight this as an early example of an elected chart. Equally, the transits are operative regardless of zodiac.

Outer Planets: I have decided to display them here although they would obviously not have been known to the Persian and Arab astrologers. The outer planet transits seem quite dramatic here.

it is a really interesting chart with 3 planets getting ready to go direct - mercury, jupiter and pluto.. the ruler of the 7th is on the south node while mars also comes under it's rule.. the start of the iraq war march 20 2003 has the jupiter/neptune opposition sitting at foundation chart sun, while t pluto is 1 degree off a square to the midheaven.. the exact mercury-neptune 45 in the iraq war chart is siting directly on the jupiter/neptune midpoint in the foundation chart as well.. a lot of dreams that didn't amount to a hill of beans for the people of iraq and around the world.. thanks for sharing that..

just a few days after the air strike on ISIS targets in the irbil area, there is talk of a military coup in baghdad which would be a more direct way for ISIS to take control over iraq, or at least remove maliki from power..

it is interesting to note the 9th house sun which would represent the political system for bagdad with the transit of the mars/jupiter square close to this point at present.. it bears watching how things unfold based on these new developments.. transit neptune squares onto the inception chart ascendant at 6 sag as well and of course ISIS is a group said to represent an alternative religious position to those in power in baghdad...

The Saturn Uranus conjunction in that chart seems to be behaving in the opposite way you expect Saturn to respond to IsisTranspluto in the current conflict in Iraq. Saturn is 1.5 degrees Taurus which gives an antiscion of 28.5 degrees Leo, which IsisTranspluto has just very slowly transited.

Was the actual destruction of Baghdad more in the aftermath of this war, around 1061 or 1062? I don't know anything about its history. Or was it destroyed during the 1058 sacking?

I am curious about the transits of IsisTranspluto over the antiscion of Baghdad's Saturn, 28.5 degrees Leo, as soon after this sacking of Iraq, IsisTranspluto in Aquarius opposed this point. IsisTranspluto moves quickly through Aquarius and slowly through its opposite sign, Leo. This ancient city must have been around through several cycles of this slow-moving outer planet.

IsisTranspluto was also at 28.5 degrees Leo in 1350. And 28.5 degrees Aquarius in 1744. I don't know how that relates to the history of Baghdad?

The chart for the founding of Baghdad has always been a mystery. In electional astrology, the first thing you do is try to get the Moon well placed. Yet in this chart, the Moon is Via Combusta (the worst of the Moon's impediments according to Sahl) and is on the Bendings, that is square the Moon's Nodes. Why would Masha'allah and Naubakht - the astrologers responsible for electing the time for the founding of he city - have chosen a time when the Moon was so debilitated?

But in other ways, it is quite a good chart. As this is the election chart for a city, you would like to get the forth house and its ruler strong and well aspected, and we see Jupiter, which rules the 4th house, in pride-of-place on the ascendant, in Sagittarius which Jupiter also rules. It is almost as if Caliph al-Mansur said to the astrologers, "Sorry, the day has been picked, so you will just have to make the best of it and pick me a good time for the ceremony." There again, as this was to be Caliph al-Mansur's city, we would expect the astrologers to elect a time that was also good as far as al-Mansur's natal chart is concerned and I suspect we are only seeing part of the story when we consider just the Baghdad founding chart.

And although Mars is on the cusp of the 7th, the house of Baghdad's enemies, it is a weak Mars having no dignity in Gemini. As Sahl says, if you want to 'spoil' war then make Mars weak and by putting a weak Mars in opposition to a strong Jupiter, the intention (surely) was make the city resilient against attack from its enemies.

The date cited for the Holden chart is 31 July 762. Is this Julian or Gregorian? If it is Gregorian, then the planets are not in those positions until 4th August 762. If it is Julian, then it was the 25th of July that the planets are in those positions. Other sources give 30th July at the founding date - and one site gives 20 July, which would be the Julian equivalent to a Gregorian 30th July.

I would suggest that there is some confusion about the date for the founding of Baghdad and we should not spend too much energy on the Holden (Al-Biruni) chart until it is sorted out...

although this seems like the only thread for the baghdad inception chart, i recall a few different folks including deb houlding discussing this chart.. i am not sure where that thread can be found, but the issue over the date and etc. was discussed at length in that other thread... perhaps mark or deb can help clarify your and fleurs questions/concerns if they show up here at some point..i was working with the july 30th date which has moon at 13 libra, as opposed to 27 libra as it is in the chart mark posted.. that is the one day difference with regard to the moon.. my computer does the julian/gregorian change automatically, so i would assume it is adjusted already.. i think that might have been discussed too previously.

I was using the Astrodienst chart to get 4th August Gregorian (25th July Julian) for those planetary positions. Is there a known problem with Astrodienst for these dates? I know it uses the 'Swiss Ephemeris' which is supposed to be the gold standard on these matters....

It would appear that the timing is not based on elective astrological principles - as least, not as we would recognise them. More on esoteric metaphysical principles to fix Baghdad sympathetically in the symbolic framework of the world.

It would seem the day for the foundation was set to coincide with one and two (and even three) million days after several Zoroastrain epochs, and the time of day was chosen so that the number of degrees from the Vernal equinox to the ascendant was the same as the number of degrees of longitude West Baghdad was from the mythical Kandakas, (in Eastern China), which was reckoned to be Prime Meridian (0 degrees longitude) in early Islamic astronomy.

That being the case, it is not surprising that there are astrological aspects to the chart that we find surprising - and no doubt were a matter of discussion for astrologers at the time.

Many thanks for the link to the article on the founding of Baghdad. I shall read it as I am fascinated by the process by which cities were founded. But on skimming through the article, I notice that the author has some planetary positions wrongly marked.

I refer to Table 1 on page 66.

The position of Saturn is given in the Biruni and Ibn al-Faqih charts as 1 Aries 40, which may well be right - I haven't examined those charts. But the 'modern' position of Saturn is given as 1 Aries 25. My Solar Fire chart agrees with that posted by Mark at the head of this thread: Saturn - 1 Taurus 26.

The same with the position for Mercury. Biruni and Ibn al-Faqih have Mercury at 25 & 24 Gemini respectively. The 'modern' position is given as 26 Gemini 53, but again Mark's chart has Mercury at 26 Cancer 54 (as does the chart I am working from).

No, I don't think so. I think the conclusion of the paper is that the Al-Biruni chart gives the right day and time. Modern software can make up deficiencies in planetary positions, which we not expect a chart from the 8th century to have exactly right.

There is more than a 4 degree difference in the Sun's position, ie more than 4 days, between the Julian date and the Gregorian. The Sun in the chart above is 10 degrees Leo 48 minutes, and the chart when you enter that date into Astrodienst's chart calculator is 6 degrees Leo 55 minutes.

This discrepancy has nothing to do with the Julian v. Gregorian calendars.

This discrepancy has nothing to do with the Julian v. Gregorian calendars.

Well, it does I think. When Julius Ceasar brought in his calendar in 46 BC, the start of the year was at the right place. But by 1582 when Pope Gregory brought in his reforms to the calendar, the error in the Julian calendar had resulted in a ten day slip in the start of the year. So, part of the reforms in changing over to the Gregorian calendar was to simply fast-forward ten days to put the calendar back on track.

But that was in 1582. If the Gregorian corrections had happened at a date half way between 46BC and 1582, then you would only have needed half as much correction....

No, I don't think so. I think the conclusion of the paper is that the Al-Biruni chart gives the right day and time. Modern software can make up deficiencies in planetary positions, which we not expect a chart from the 8th century to have exactly right.

But that doesn't explain why the 'modern' positions are incorrect too.

Have the 'modern' positions perhaps been calculated by the same means Biruni would have used? That would explain the discrepancy.

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